2.5 Cultural Consequences of Connectivity (copy)

Marco Polo

Venetian merchant and traveler. His accounts of his travels to China offered Europeans a firsthand view of Asian lands and stimulated interest in Asian trade.

Ibn Battuta

Moroccan Muslim scholar, the most widely traveled individual of his time. He wrote a detailed account of his visits to Islamic lands from China to Spain and the western Sudan.

Margery Kempe

Wrote the Book of Margery Kempe - considered the 1st autobiography in the Eng. language. Chronicles her pilgrimages to holy sites in Europe and Asia. Claimed to have vision that called her to leave the vanities of the world (saw vision of Christ).

Swahili

Bantu language with Arabic loanwords spoken in coastal regions of East Africa.

Urdu

A Persian-influenced literary form of Hindi written in Arabic characters and used as a literary language since the 1300s.

magnetic compass

Chinese invention that aided navigation by showing which direction was north

Hangzhou

Capital of later Song dynasty; located near East China Sea; permitted overseas trading; population exceeded 1 million.

Samarkand

During the rule of Timur Lane was the most influential captial city, a wealthy trading center known for decorated mosques and tombs.

Kashgar

A central trading point at which the western and the eastern Silk Road met

Constantinople

A large and wealthy city that was the imperial capital of the Byzantine empire and later the Ottoman empire, now known as Istanbul